Facsimile (popularly known as fax) equipment has become a common method of relaying information in today's business world. Most fax machines built today fall into one of two major groups: computer based and standalone fax machines. Computer based technology can be as compact and versatile as the computer equipment itself. In terms of usability as fax equipment it can send most computer files designed to be printed on any printer. However in order for the computer to send images that were not originally generated by the computer, the image has to be scanned, digitized, or otherwise converted to a computer readable form. This necessitates additional scanning equipment whenever external printed or photographed material is to be transmitted by fax.
Dedicated standalone fax machines are for the most part built around a static line image capture element that requires the image to be printed on paper that is then transported through the fax machine. During this process, a static line image capture element senses the image and transmits it to the receiving fax machine, or saves it for later transmission. Most standalone fax machines can feed only single pages of paper, of standard dimensions such as US letter and legal size paper or ISO A4 size paper. If the material to be transmitted is from a book or of non standard dimensions, the user must first photocopy the image onto a single sheet of paper of the proper dimensions, and only then use the fax machine to transmit the picture. Additionally, if a picture of real world objects is to be transmitted, the object needs to be photographed and then the photograph needs to be transmitted to paper or computer readable form before it can be transmitted via a regular standalone fax machine or a computer based fax device.
Additionally, standalone fax machines are relatively large and bulky, thus limiting their portability. Light, portable fax equipment can find many uses particularly by traveling business people.
Still video photography allows capture of images of varying formats and seem to be a perfect fit for the problems of varying sources of the image. Still video can also be made highly portable. There are various implementations of still video equipment commonly available from companies like Kodak, Sony and Canon, and various aspects of the art are disclosed in numerous US patents and other publications. Methods of improving still video performance were described in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 5,003,398 (Suzuki, Mar. 26, 1991) and methods of storing image data in non volatile memory were described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,077,612 (Megrgardt et al., Dec. 31, 1991). Still video photography equipment, however, is designed and geared towards high resolution color photography, primarily for display on television or a computer monitor. Most current still video camera units call for 24 bit color resolution at a different aspect ratio and different resolution than that required by facsimile standards such as ITU T.4.
There are in existence such methods as described by U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,012 (Schmidt, Mar 9, 1993) to convert real time output of a still video camera signals to a fax compatible output, and same disclosure describes various devices such as the Image Data Corporation PhotoPhone, and other devices and methods for transmitting captured video images or for translation and conversion of video images into fax compatible form. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,432 (Creedon et al., Aug. 10, 1993) teaches a method for converting video signals to facsimile signal. These former disclosures dictate the use of an interim device or method to convert from common, television oriented video output to fax compatible format, mostly as an adaptation of an existing still video camera. Those attempts show the need for generating fax signals from a still video-like device, however, the starting point of those former devices is the common, television oriented video signal. The above described methods call for interpolation of the video data. When applied to a page of written material for example, this interpolation process may cause loss of clarity of the printed data.
Therefor there is a clear need for a fax equipment device, designed specifically as facsimile equipment, comprising an image capturing device designed specifically to standard facsimile resolution and aspect ratio, with fax transmitting capability directly integrated with the device, and proper mounting and focusing equipment that will make the device easily usable as a light portable fax camera.